


By Reason of Longing for You

by macamoon



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Greek Religion & Lore Fusion, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, M/M, Reincarnation, alfred makes an appearance, but with lore?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:48:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27472252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macamoon/pseuds/macamoon
Summary: Hippolyta blinks for a second, “You don’t know? Achilles and Patroclus.” She points at the urn behind them, “I haven’t seen you in ages. But here you are,”--------------------------------------Where Bruce and Clark discover that their knowing each other stretched across lifetimes.
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne, Diana (Wonder Woman) & Bruce Wayne
Comments: 12
Kudos: 141





	By Reason of Longing for You

Bruce’s first memory was not his own— well at least doesn’t seem like it. He remembers blonde hair basked in golden sunlight. Green eyes, warm and caring. He remembers an overwhelming feeling of love in his body. And he remembers looking down into hands too tan to be his clasping the blond boy’s so tenderly. 

It could’ve been a dream. Bruce’s dreams have always been vivid, but something was nagging him, telling him so insistently that it wasn’t. It just _couldn’t_ be. He can’t even pin out a before and after of its formation. Like it was always there. Even when he dreamed of it, and Bruce was an avid dreamer, he knew it couldn’t have been _just_ a dream.

Especially with all of it’s companions, stolen scenes of the blond, alone and with others. Sometimes they were in a cave by a fire so warm Bruce could almost feel it on his pale skin. Sometimes the blond clutches his hand, tight as they walk to the sea. And very rarely, are the moments the blond isn’t there, where the only indication of the memories companionship are Bruce’s skin color. Still his first memory was the most prominent in emotion and reoccurrence. 

At six, he and his parents searched through all his home videos for anything that could’ve been close to his memory. But there wasn’t a thing that felt familiar enough, warm enough. The only feeling that came close were dinners in the kitchen with his parents and Alfred before nuzzling between them watching a movie. Waking up the next morning in his bed, faintly remembering his parents, smiling at him and tucking him in and feeling loved.

When Bruce first realized the memory was of love, his stomach filled with butterflies. Was it a prophecy? But then, why was he tan? But Bruce was never much a believer of fate. He breathed. It was probably an old film he and his family had watched in the theatre. His family’s presence would’ve been the cause for the feeling. 

Still, he never quite got rid of the butterflies when he thought of the memory and couldn’t shake the uncomfortable feeling of intrusion when he tried imagining his parents there.

* * *

It was naive of him but wherever Bruce went, he always subconsciously looked for blond hair and green eyes. Close-calls and nothings came up everywhere. Galas always drew in x-marks (which only made them extra boring but at least he had Silver and eventually Tommy to liven up the evenings until his parents let him go home.) Days where his parents took him to their workplaces also brought nothing. Most close-calls came from the Waynes’ visits to movies and theatres, though the search still always ended with nothing. 

* * *

And suddenly Bruce stops. He can’t even let himself indulge in the memory-- _the dream_. He can’t let himself indulge in any dream because his parents are dead and everyone keeps apologizing like they can change anything like he doesn’t hear the way they talk or see the way they stiffen up around him or treat him like porcelain or pretend to understan—

The world doesn’t halt. It doesn’t draw a shaky breath. It doesn’t wait. It continues. Galas continue, movies keep playing, people keep walking. Crime kept going. The world forgets too soon.

Bruce goes to bed, grasping onto memories, not dreams. Memories of his parents in yellow and red, desperate to never forget. He burns them into his mind, their scents, voices, every little wrinkle, and detail he can grasp. He will not be the world. 

Bruce spends more time in the library, researching crime, trying to understand why. He is not a believer of fate. There had to be another reason why.

He increasingly starts waking up from nightmares.

Alfred had realized by the fifth time Bruce screams of red and pearls. Bruce clings to him desperately on instinct. He can barely process Alfred’s soothing words as he digs his head into his butler’s shoulder. They stay like that for a while until Bruce’s throat is sore from screaming and Alfred’s face is streaked with tears of his own. Bruce is numb as Alfred leads him downstairs and even number when Alfred passes him a cup of hot cocoa. By the time either party takes their first sip, it’s gone cold. Distantly, Bruce notes that Alfred seems to have aged a millennium in that moment. Guilt crashes down on him as he realizes the price that Alfred had paid too.

It’s with even more guilt the next morning when he realizes that it was the first time in a while that he dreamed of green and gold.

* * *

The Batman settles on a ledge. The shadows of 3 AM hide him away in a cold welcome. Crime was slowing down and he planned to go home soon before patrolling again at 5. 

He scans the neighborhood, noting every cluster of civilians. He can feel eyes on him. He sees red and blue out of the corner of his eye. 

“Batman,”

Bruce stills, as a rush of gold and green come over him. He reels in his heart and schools his facial expression. He keeps his eye firmly trained on his city.

“My name is Superman,”

And it starts.

They argue, at first. Batman never hesitating to tell him to get out, reminding him that he wasn’t welcome there. Superman, insistently coming anyways. They’re stubborn and unyielding.

Then they work together. The League of Assassins comes to Metropolis and Batman and Superman get them out with minor casualties. Anger gives away and trust is built.

Now, on quiet Saturday nights (quiet for Gotham, at least), Batman finds himself nodding along to Superman’s stories on shadowed rooftops. He doesn’t know when it turns into something real, the immediate thoughts of Clark when he wakes up injured, the butterflies in his stomach that make him feel like he was a teen teaching Harvey Dent to dance for the first time, the increasing dreams of his memories the same nights they meet on the harbor warehouses (Clark’s insistence for the sea-side view). 

But it doesn’t affect their team-ups. He makes sure it doesn’t. It gets easier to play the part of the apathetic robot as time moves on. The addition of Diana to their friendship and later, the formation of the Justice League. He buries himself in work, shoving his feelings down. Tries to suppress it and almost fools himself into believing it worked until he catches his gaze drifting over to Clark as it so often does.

* * *

The sun in Themyscira beat down on Bruce like a punishment. Queen Hippolyta invited the entire Trinity (as civilians have dubbed them) to Themyscira, most likely a gift to Diana. 

If he hadn’t already vehemently insisted that he wear his cowl, Bruce would’ve opted for his domino mask by now. It’s times like these when he wonders why’d he’d ever been so stubborn.

Diana leaves the two to fare on their own with a promise to come back as soon as she and her mother finish their talks. Queen Hippolyta was nice enough to offer them a tour of the island with two of her guards, something Bruce actually had hoped would happen. The guards were eager to enlighten them on everything regarding their culture from architecture to colloquial slang and to their delight, Superman and Batman were avid learners. In two hours time, Bruce could give a brief overview of the new deviations of Amazonian martial arts, philosophies, and the beliefs of the afterlife. One of the guards, Eleni, was just about to explain reincarnation when another nearby Amazonian called to her. She pauses before both Clark and the other guard, Natasa, encourage her to go along (“The rooms, right here, Len. It won’t hurt,”).

The two heroes round a corner and step into a large room of art. Statues lined the bare white walls and the spaces they left empty were occupied with pottery on top of long tables. In the far back of the room, a staircase extended upward.

“Feel free to visit the second floor. The more, valuable pieces are up there,”

Bruce gives her a nod without looking at her before he walks between each piece, examining it. He gives each one a respectful amount of time, carefully calculated to not show any disrespect before turning to the stairs to the pieces he was actually curious about. What would be considered more valuable here? He hears Clark follow him but gives it no mind as he surveys the room. 

It was formatted the same way as the prior floor but there was a noticeable difference in the amount of artifacts. Not that the smaller amount of pieces was a bad thing, though. In fact, it almost made it better. The room upstairs held a different air to it, more regal, and Bruce couldn’t help but think it was intentional. The artifacts here were more delicate, larger in size and detail, though the paints were more chipped. 

He goes through them one by one, lost in his admiration. His hand itches for a camera, Alfred would’ve loved the intricacy of the statue in front of him. Instead, he puts a reminder in his head to check in a favor with Diana when Alfred’s birthday comes around. 

He turned to see Clark looking at something across the room. Upon closer inspection, he finds himself staring at an urn, glossy and black except for the bronze paintings on it, two men sparing each other as a centaur watches over them. Bruce furrows his brows, staring at the urn, a strange sense of relaxation comes over him when Diana’s left arm wraps around his shoulder, her right arm on Clark’s. At the sudden contact, Clark jumps, making Diana chuckle.

“Frightened you?” She smiles smugly at them before glancing at the urn in front of them, “Oh, Mount Pelion.”

“Diana, you never told me your friends were old souls,” 

The three turn to face Hippolyta, smiling and looking at them with visible excitement. And this can’t be good. Bruce frowns at it preparing himself for the worst. He spares a quick glance to his friends’ faces, Diana eyes-widened by a fraction of a centimeter, and Clark’s furrowed brows. 

“I hadn’t known—” Diana musters out, masking her surprise a lot more efficiently than Eleni and Natasa from behind the Queen. Hippolyta opened her mouth to respond, Clark had beat her to it,

“Excuse, me, Queen Hippolyta but what does that mean?”

Hippolyta blinks for a second, “You don’t know? Achilles and Patroclus.” She points at the urn behind them, “I haven’t seen you in ages. But here you are,”

Bruce looks at the urn again and all at once it clicks and oh god he was right for preparing himself for the worst. A flash of his memory comes back in his mind as a replay of Eleni explaining reincarnation serves as the scene’s soundtrack. When he comes back to the present and can hear the barest snippet of Hippolyta explaining that Achilles and Patroclus were lovers, the only thing he could coherently think was _Guess it was a stolen memory after all._

* * *

They ignore each other. Of course, they do. What else do you do when you find out you and your best friend are reincarnated lovers, practically the closest thing to soulmates that they knew of. Especially, in Bruce’s case, when you’d been in love with them for years. They still work together and attend meetings but the air between them is awkward and rigid. They avoid each other’s eyes at meetings and the other members have started to notice. Diana watches them painfully, trying to open up conversations they would both typically jump on to. But they don’t. 

And it’s embarrassing. Clark turns into a tomato every time they accidentally meet eyes and Bruce almost crushed his pen when he accidentally thought about it. He had to mentally mumble apologies to J’onn more times this past week since the last time his emergency ringer went off (Ace had accidentally hit the button while playing with Alfred). He didn’t even know if J’onn received his apologies but if anything he definitely heard at least the smallest bits of Bruce’s thoughts in those moments of emotional tension. That he learned the hard way, in the past where J’onn abruptly looked at him and in private asking him if he was okay.

Now, he’s frustrated, embarrassed, he should’ve seen it. _World’s Finest idiots_ . He was a detective likened to the fictional Sherlock Holmes and Clark— Clark was Superman. The clues were lined up like a trail of breadcrumbs yet nothing he did could’ve prevented this. Even in his research in reincarnation and both Achilles and Patroclus, clues are there. The overwhelming feeling of familiarity of certain images and names, his comfort on Themyscira, his comfort with Clark. Even Clark’s strange infatuation with the sea. He’s been trying to determine whether or not his past life ( _god was it weird to say that_ ) influenced his feelings toward Clark in this life but nothing tells him a direct answer. Though, he supposes that’s not a very common question one would need to ask.

Bruce’s eyes snap up at the sound of Hal’s heavily exaggerated yawn and Barry’s chatter, the usual indicators of a meeting’s end. Bruce stalks back to Gotham and buries himself in work, wishing not for the first time that his memories could be selective.

* * *

When he passes the parlor room the next morning, he sees Diana being let in by Alfred. His first thought is _oh no_ shortly followed by _run_. But Diana sees him and it’s too late. She raises her arms in peace and Bruce decides to hear her out. (A wise decision in Alfred’s opinion if his pleased smile as he served their tea was anything to tell by.)

They sat in the library as they did prior to the Themyscira trip. Every two weeks Bruce and Diana would meet up on Wednesdays and read together in the library with tea and biscuits courtesy Alfred. Sometimes the butler would even join them, talking with Diana about history and recounts of his past before the Waynes ever came into his life. 

Diana sits before him now in a perfect composure of casualty they both knew was false.

“You didn’t know,” He says bluntly with no interest in playing pretend with her.

“No,” she confirms, pausing to sip her tea, “It does explain quite a bit, though,” Bruce looks up, breaking his staring contest with the table. A question paints his face.

“I gravitated towards you both. You both felt familiar and home-like. Yes, it was partially because we were the only capes we knew. But I suppose this explains the other half— as close to an explanation as I can get.” Another sip of tea before they make eye contact,

“I’m sorry about my mother. You shouldn’t have found out like that,”

Bruce is silent, but his mind whirs. They speak no further of it, conversation falling back to the topics usual to their tea talks.

* * *

And then Clark comes by. 

It’s 4 AM and Bruce just returned from his patrol but when he gets into the cave, he sees a red cape and freezes. He schools his face and Clark turns around, awkwardly meeting his eyes.

“No metas in Gotham, Clark,” Bruce says, moving past Clark who smiles at him with tight eyes. It’s not what Alfred would’ve wanted him to say but it offered both of them a neutral ground. A clean slate in front of the mess they truly were.

“So you say every time,”

“Yet here you are”

“Yet here I am,” Clark waits for him to finish turning on the computer before he finally says,

“Diana visited me this morning… She said she talked to you,”

Bruce hummed. There was no avoiding this talk if he wanted to and damn he wanted to no matter how still his legs were where he stood, cast in a casual position, “She said it wasn’t surprising to her. We felt familiar…” 

“This doesn’t have to change anything, Clark,” He adds, a bit too quick to play off as casual.

Clark makes a noise halfway between clearing his throat and exhalation and that alone almost makes Bruce turn around to him. Almost. His will breaks with Clark’s next line, though and he distantly wonders how he was ever able to wield a Green Lantern ring.

“Y’know, it’s kind of disorienting to know that my soul isn’t _mine_ ,” At Bruce’s impassive stare, Clark sighs, rolling his eyes, “You know what I mean, B”

Their staring contest lasts exactly thirty seconds before Bruce breaks into a smirk.

“It’s always been yours, Clark. It’s as much as yours as it is Achilles as it will be the next person,”

“How did you suppose that I’d been Achilles?”

Bruce freezes. _Damnit_. There are two options: Drop the memories and fake some other response or confess. Bruce looks at Clark’s eyes and almost suffocates in the hope radiating from it. He internally curses Achilles and Patroclus— their former selves— for putting him in this position in the first place.

“I think Achilles is more fit for blond hair,”

Clark stares at him before a grin breaks out, he moves like he’s about to give Bruce a hug. Bruce suddenly feels the back of his chair on his back and Clark relaxes into his previous position.

“Rao, you’ve seen them too,” he says, instead, unfettered by Bruce’s reaction, “When did you first… uh...”

“First time I met you,”

Clark nods at him in agreement, “I couldn’t see myself in them. If you’re right though, Patroclus had brown curly hair,” 

Clark laughs for a second and it feels so weirdly calm. Like he wasn’t having a conversation about his past life as a lover to his present-day crush.

“Bruce,” The soft tone he takes confuses Bruce. “What if I wanted things to change?”

Bruce’s eyes widen and he silently thanks that J’onn wasn’t nearby because of the intensity of his thoughts. Because that could mean an array of things. Clark might not want to associate with him anymore. Maybe he was uncomfortable with this sudden development they were forced into and decided that cutting Bruce off would be the best for his mental health. Or maybe he meant the other option. One Bruce couldn’t even come to terms with wanting. And Clark’s tone of voice just gives it away.

“Clark wh- no. You—” Bruce breathes, “It’s just the soulbond, Clark,”

“B, you said that my soul was as much mine as his.”

“The memories then,” Bruce is gripping the chair now, an anchor to this moment.

“Of us, Bruce and Clark. Not Patroclus and Achilles.”

“Clark—” He chokes out hating how weak it sounds.

“Bruce,” Clark responds almost mockingly. Bruce looks into his eyes watching as Clark’s eyebrows unknit in realization.

“You’re scared.”

And hell maybe he is. 

Clark looks at him disgustingly soft, “Hey, we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. We can just stay how we were before Themyscira...”

Bruce nearly exhales, mouth opening to speak but Clark, damn his super speed, beats him to it,

“...if you can say that you don’t love me too.”

He’s trapped. There’s no way for him to lie now, Clark all too aware of his heart rate. And Clark knows, he’s trapped. His eyes, hopeful and coy. He wishes he could look away without it meaning something but if he keeps looking he’s afraid he’d give his whole soul away. Though in a way, he already has. 

Bruce gives a huff of defeat so small Clark could only hear it with his extended hearing. He gives up, and reaches for Clark’s hands, just as Clark closes the distance between them. And when their lips met an old Greecian sunset flashes between them.

**Author's Note:**

> \- okay so yes, Achilles did kill Hippolyta's sister in the Trojan War. The Amazons actually sided with the Trojans instead of the Achaeans. Taken some creative liberties with this but: Hippolyta's had a lot of time to grieve for her sister and she knows that Clark wouldn't have remembered/had any intention of it even if it was the same soul. The fact that both Bruce and Clark had no kill rules was actually a reason why Hippolyta approved of them. Also, at this point, Hippolyta does not know which soul resides in who but she assumes the heroes know because Eleni and Natasa were giving her an overview of what they talked about, including reincarnation. As to how Hippolyta realizes? Let's just say Thetis (Achilles mom, a sea nymph) was trying to give them a gift and another chance (hence the small water bits).
> 
> \- and if it wasn't clear before, Achilles was reincarnated into Clark, and Patroclus is reincarnated as Bruce. Clark often being seen as the leader of the JL and just generally being placed as the most dangerous of the JL and all the notions of him being considered a god paralleled to Achilles being demigod kinda made it hard to think of Clark otherwise. In the early comics, Lois Lane actually compares Superman to Achilles. Mighty coincidence seeing as I learned it after writing this fic. Patroclus murdering a child at a young age gives a lil twisty parallel on Bruce experiencing the death of his parents, though obviously, the outcomes had stark differences on their lives.
> 
> \- As for the personality differences, reincarnation is often seen as another chance (particularly Hinduism and Buddhism) so I figured that their personalities are bound to be somewhat different. I wasn't sure on Greek perspectives of reincarnation so I just took what I knew personally c:
> 
> \- Natasa and Eleni are Greek names! Natasa specifically meaning resurrection which I found somewhat appropriate.
> 
> \- Title is taken from book XIX of the Iliad. It's said by a grieving Achilles to a dead Patroclus. "There was a time, ill fated, o dearest of all my companions, when you yourself would set the desirable dinner before me... But now you lie here torn before me, and my heart goes starved for meat and drink, though they are here beside me, by reason of longing for you." is the full quote (with a minor omission)
> 
> \- oh and yes there's a throwaway line to bruharvey. didn't tag it because it's really minor but I love them just as much as superbat 💕
> 
> If you are Greek and find a portrayal of something in this fic offensive or incorrect feel free to leave a comment!  
> I hope you enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed writing it.


End file.
